Major Anti-cybercrime Operation in Spain Results in 11 Arrests

Police arrested 11 people, 10 of them in Spain, in the takedown of a network that intended to infect millions of computers in some 30 countries with a virus, the Spanish Interior Ministry and Europol announced Wednesday.

The 11th suspect, a 27-year-old Russian man, was arrested in the United Arab Emirates.

Spain’s secretary of state for security, Francisco Martinez, and Europol director Rob Wainwright told a press conference how the arrested people sent e-mails bearing the logo of the police as a lure to get users to pay a fine for allegedly accessing illegal Web pages or child pornography.

Spanish police arrested six Russian citizens, two Ukrainians and two Georgians on the Costa del Sol.

Authorities estimate that the group obtained more than 1 million euros ($1.34 million) per year running their fraudulent scheme.